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White Fish Braised in Lemon with Red Peppers and Tomatoes and Roasted Green Beans and Red Onion

January 24, 2014 //
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White Fish Braised in Lemon with Red Peppers and Tomatoes

This recipes comes from Mark Bittman’s cookbook, Kitchen Express. For years, Bittman wrote for The New York Times’ Dining section as “The Minimalist,” where he became famous for his 101 recipe lists. He’s done 101 appetizers, salads, simple meals etc; all of which take under 20 minutes to prepare. His lists are epic, and yet totally inspiring and do-able. This cookbook is in the same vein. I wouldn’t recommend it for a novice cook – he isn’t very specific about measurements or technique – but if you feel pretty confident in the kitchen it is a great tool for weeknight cooking.

2 medium onions (yellow or red, whatever you prefer), thinly sliced*
2 red peppers, thinly sliced*
2 TB. olive oil
1 pint of cherry or grape tomatoes, cut in half*
4 fillets of white fish (about 6 oz. each) –  flounder or tilapia are good choices
Juice of 1 lemon
1 TB. capers (optional)

* ingredients that can be prepped several days ahead.

Heat olive oil in a large saute pan and add onions and peppers. When the vegetables soften, add tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes, or until the tomatoes soften. Season fish with salt and pepper; move vegetables to the side of the pan, add a bit more olive oil, and sear the fish for about two minutes (if your pan is not large enough for all of the fish, sear the first two fillets, remove them onto a plate and then sear the next two). Turn fish over (or return all fish to the pan onto the non-seared side), spread the vegetables around the fish, add the lemon juice and cover the pan and simmer for another three minutes, or until the fish is cooked through. Salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle with capers.

Roasted Green Beans and Red Onion
String Beans

This is one of my favorite, winter side dishes.

1 ½ lb. green beans, trimmed
1 large red onion, sliced in thick rings
1 TB. olive oil
salt and pepper

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss all ingredients on a rimmed baking sheet and roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes – tossing once, halfway through. Season with salt and pepper again, if needed.

 

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Skirt Steak with Arugula and Roasted Cauliflower

January 24, 2014 //
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When I was an apprentice farmer at The Farm School, the Spannocchia Foundation invited us to work for three weeks on their farm in Tuscany. Traveling throughout Italy had always been a dream of mine so I was beyond excited, even if it was in the dead of winter. A couple of my fellow apprentice farmers and I decided to tack a few extra weeks on to our trip to visit Rome, Umbria, Florence and Venice. In Florence, I was introduced to the classic Italian dish, Bistecca alla Fiorentina, which is essentially just a Porterhouse steak, but man, did it leave an impression. The first time I had the steak it was paired with a beautiful arugula salad, and the bitterness of the greens provided the perfect balance to the richness of the steak. Oh, I miss Italy… Anyway, we can’t all eat Porterhouse steaks all the time, so this recipe, inspired by my trip, calls for skirt steak, which is relatively inexpensive, but super delicious. Buon Appetito!

Skirt Steak with Arugula

skirt steak – about 6 oz. per person
olive oil
salt and pepper
1 large bunch of arugula
balsamic vinegar
Parmesan cheese

Heat a grill pan, large saute pan, or grill until hot. Meanwhile, drizzle a bit of olive oil on both sides of your steaks and season both sides generously with salt and pepper (if you have any fresh rosemary, chop one or two sprigs and add with the salt and pepper). Add steak to pan or grill and cook for about 4-5 minutes on each side. Four minutes for medium rare, about five for medium, etc. Let the steak rest for 10 minutes before carving.
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While the steak is resting, shave some Parmesan cheese onto the arugula and about 1-2 minutes before you are ready to carve the steak add olive oil, balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper to taste, and toss (always add the oil first and always use more oil than vinegar). Plate arugula with sliced steak.
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Roasted Cauliflower

We had a half a head of cauliflower from another dish I made earlier in the week so I decided to serve it alongside the steak.

1 head of cauliflower, cut into florets*
1 TB. olive oil
salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese

* ingredients that can be prepped several days ahead.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss cauliflower on a baking sheet with olive oil, salt and pepper and roast in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. About halfway through, toss the cauliflower so all of the florets are nicely browned. At the very end of roasting, sprinkle a little bit of Parmesan cheese on top and let it melt before serving.
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One-Pan Farro with Tomatoes and a Green Salad

January 24, 2014 //
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One-Pan Farro with Tomatoes

A carb with a ton of flavor that I don’t have to feel guilty about eating? Sign me up! I was intimidated by farro for a long time, imagining that it was one of those ingredients that you had to soak and cook for hours upon hours. So it was a wonderful surprise when I discovered that it takes about the same amount of time to cook as rice, but, in my opinion, is much hardier.

Many of you will recognize the origins of this recipe – the one-pan pasta that was all over Pinterest a few months ago. Before I got around to trying it, Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen, my favorite food blog, took it on and then improved it with farro. I am eternally grateful to her.

Green Salad

 

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Salmon, Red Cabbage and New Potatoes

January 17, 2014 //
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Salmon, Red Cabbage and New Potatoes
IMG_0982 Web

I LOVE this recipe. I kept making salmon with a lemony, fennel salad, and it was delicious, but I was getting bored. This is so easy and interesting. One warning: the potatoes take longer than the recipe says. I recommend roasting the potatoes for 15-20 minutes by themselves,  then add the cabbage and roast for another 15-20 minutes before adding the salmon.

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Pork Chops with Peppers and Capers, Green Salad

January 17, 2014 //
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This recipe comes from Mario Batali’s cookbook Molto Italiano. Does anybody remember Mario’s old show on the Food Network (back when the network was actually about cooking)? I have many cooking “mentors” from television and Mario is one of them. I learned so much about the regional nature of Italian cooking from him; and I grew up on the south shore of  Long Island where it seemed like everyone, but me, was Italian. Over the years, he has opened a lot of restaurants, which usually makes me leery, but man, are his good. To speed this recipe up I tweaked the ingredients a bit and skipped the brining process, which I’m sure makes the chops amazing, but it isn’t necessary.

4 bone-in pork chops
salt and pepper
3 TB. olive oil
3 peppers (1 each red, green and yellow), cored, seeded and cut into thin strips*
1 large red onion, sliced*
¼ cup black olives, pitted and chopped*
1 TB. red pepper flakes
1 TB. capers
1 cup dry white wine

* ingredients that can be prepped several days ahead.

Season pork chop with salt and pepper. In a large saute pan, heat the olive oil over high heat until smoking. Add chops to the pan (don’t crowd the pan – you can do 2 chops at a time if you need to) and cook until dark golden brown on the first side, about 7 minutes. Turn over and cook until browned on the second side, about 4 minutes, then transfer to a plate.

Add the peppers, onion, olives, red pepper flakes, and capers and stir with a wooden spoon to loosen the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the wine and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, place the chops in the pepper mixture, and simmer for 10 minutes (the pork should be cooked to 135 degrees F).

Season the sauce with salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Green Saladlettuce

A basic salad of your favorite greens will nicely complement the pork chops.

 

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Chicken Thighs, Fennel and Artichoke Fricassee with Noodles

January 17, 2014 //
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Chicken, Fennel and Artichoke Fricassee

Absolutely delicious. I made this recipe with a few chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken (you’ll see that in the meal plan’s grocery list). Try it either way, or even use bone-in chicken breasts instead, if you prefer white meat. Also, add a bit of salt and pepper at the end to taste.

Noodles

Nothing fancy here, just old-fashioned egg noodles that remind you of being a kid. They’re nice for soaking up the juices of the fricassee.

Boil salted water and follow directions on the bag.

 

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Chicken and Vegetable Fried Rice

January 17, 2014 //
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This dish is a great way to use up leftover rice from another night’s dinner or take-out, because the rice should be at least a day old or it will be too sticky for the recipe. You can use whatever protein (pork, beef, tofu) you prefer or skip it all together and just use vegetables – also throw whatever veggies you like in here. Here’s what I did.

purple onions

2 TB. vegetable oil
1 garlic, minced
1 TB. ginger, minced
¾ lb. chicken cutlets, cut into strips
2 zucchini, chopped*
2 red pepper, chopped*
6 scallions, chopped (greens reserved)
1 can water chestnuts, sliced
2 cups rice
2 eggs, beaten
soy sauce

* ingredients that can be prepped several days ahead.

Heat oil in a large saute pan or wok until very hot. Add garlic and ginger and stir quickly until they smell delicious, between 30 sec – 1 min. Add chicken and stir until no longer pink. Add zucchini, pepper and scallions and continue to stir for 1-2 minutes. Add water chestnuts, rice, and eggs and continue to stir. Once blended add soy sauce to taste, stir and serve.

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Baked Fish with Tomatoes and Olives, Kale Caesar Salad

January 10, 2014 //
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Baked Fish with Tomatoes and Olives

I’ve made this recipe with flounder, tilapia and even basa. You can use whatever flaky, white fish you want, but I would stick to something relatively thin. Don’t let the mayonnaise and cheese freak you out – it sounds weird with fish, but it helps protect the fish from the heat of the oven and keeps it very moist.

white fish fillets – 6 ounces per person
8 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced
12 Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped
Zest of a lemon
salt and pepper
olive oil
4 ts. mayonnaise
4 TB. Parmesan cheese, grated
Juice of a lemon

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. In an ovenproof skillet or baking dish, arrange tomatoes in overlapping circles. Scatter olives and lemon zest over the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper; drizzle with olive oil.

In a small bowl, stir together mayonnaise, Parmesan and lemon juice. Place fish on top of tomatoes in skillet. Season fish with salt and pepper. Spread mayonnaise mixture on top.

Bake until fish is opaque throughout and topping is golden brown in spots, about 20 minutes.

Kale Caesar Salad

The first time I had this salad was at the now closed Alias restaurant on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I was blown away that you could eat raw kale! So, I was super happy when Melissa Clark published a variation of this salad’s recipe in the New York Times a few years ago. Her version was inspired by the Brooklyn restaurant Franny’s. As you can probably tell, this salad is now ubiquitous, but I don’t care. It is super yummy and easy to make at home. (I never make this with the breadcrumbs, but I’m sure it is good.)

 

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Bourbon Glazed Smoked Pork Chops and Roasted Delicata Squash

January 10, 2014 //
1

Bourbon Glazed Smoked Pork Chops
Martha Stewart’s recipes are go-to’s in our home. I have subscribed to Living for years and was a big fan of her short-lived Everyday Food mini-magazine too. These days, however, her website is where I tend to go for most of my recipe hunting. It was recently updated it to be very Pinterest friendly with a recipe layout that is wonderful to use on a tablet in the kitchen. Anyway, as you probably guessed, this recipe is from Martha.  It is so fast and tasty. If you can’t find smoked pork chops, which I had never heard of until I started shopping at my neighborhood butcher, than you can easily substitute a ham steak. Even if you only make two of these chops, keep the measurements of the glaze the same – you won’t really have extra glaze.

Roasted Delicata Squash
I had never heard of delicata squash until I was an apprentice at the Farm School, but once I tried them I was hooked. They are slightly more delicate in flavor than a butternut squash with thinner skin that you can actually eat (more fiber!). If you can’t find them, substitute butternut or acorn squash, but increase the cooking time.

2 delicata squash – halved, seeds scooped out
2 TB. butter
2 TB. maple syrup

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt butter on the stove or in the microwave and add syrup. Place squash halves facing up onto a cookie sheet and brush butter and syrup mixture on the inside of the sqush. Pop in the oven for 25 minutes, or until a knife easily slips through the flesh, and enjoy!

(This is a pretty traditional recipe, but you can also experiment a bit with winter squash and substitute the butter with olive oil and syrup with garlic and a mixture of spices such as cinnamon, chili and cumin. It will be more savory, but equally good!)

 

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Penne with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage

January 10, 2014 //
1

Broccoli rabe, an Italian favorite, is a bit bitter, but if you blanch it the flavor will mellow. 

¾ lb. penne
1 bunch broccoli rabe, roughly chopped*
3 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 lb. Italian sausage, removed from casings
½ cup chicken broth
olive oil
red pepper flakes
salt and pepper

* ingredients that can be prepped several days in advance.

Boil salted water for pasta, when boiling add pasta and follow directions on the box.

Boil salted water and add chopped broccoli rabe for about 1-2 minutes, or until it turns bright green. Immediately remove it from the water, drain it in a colander and run cold water over it to stop the cooking. Or, if you are really ambitious, dump it in a bowl of ice water and then drain. Set aside. (Now you’ve learned how to blanch!) This step can be done before you start the pasta so that you can use the small pot twice.

Heat a saute pan and add sausage, cooking between 5-7 minutes, or until it is no longer pink and is starting to brown. Add garlic, and a bit of olive oil to the pan, sautéing until the garlic starts to smell delicious. Add broccoli rabe and a pinch of red pepper flakes to the sausage and garlic and saute a couple more minutes until it is covered in all of the nice juices and heats through. Pour in chicken broth and let the mixture simmer a bit until the pasta is finished.

Before you drain the pasta, reserve about a ½ cup of the pasta’s cooking water, and set aside. Drain the pasta, add it to the broccoli rabe/sausage mixture and toss. If it is too dry for your taste add the reserved pasta water – just a little bit at a time! Toss, add salt and pepper and taste. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over it and serve!

 

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